Captain Usopp
by DeathMachina
Summary: Usopp overcomes his cowardice and lying habits (mostly) and heads off to sea at an early age. Watch as he gathers a powerful crew and establishes himself as a brave warrior of the seas, the King of Snipers, and maybe even the Pirate King. Rated T for violence.


Prologue 1: The Brave Captain of the Seas

In an ordinary archipelago in East Blue exists a town known as Syrup Village. Besides being the hometown of the famous pirate sharpshooter Yasopp, nothing particularly interesting has come from the town. The townspeople lived in a tranquil, laid back life with no major deviances from a normal adult lifestyle. That is, with one major exception in the morning.

"WE'RE IN DANGER!" A yell could be heard resonating throughout town. "THE PIRATES ARE ATTACKING! EVERYBODY RUN! THE PIRATES ARE COMING!" All this shouting both awakened some townspeople while signaling to others that it was time to go to work. No one was affected by the fact that vicious pirates were about to invade the village. This was of course due to the fact that the boy yelling was lying. In fact, every morning in Syrup Village was started like this. Today was like no other.

"Ah, it's Usopp. I guess this means that it's time for me to go to work," muttered Mornin, the mayor of Syrup Village. Indeed, it was time for the townspeople to get to their routines. And this begins with chasing down the liar who is still shouting at the top of his lungs.

The liar was no other than Usopp, a fourteen year old boy. He is a slim teenager with curly back hair and tan skin. He wears black overalls with a white sash. On his head is an olive plaid bandana with a pair of sniper goggles over them. His most notable feature is his very long nose which extends a few inches out of his face.

"THIS IS BAD!" Usopp continued yelling. Because he had been yelling and running for the last five minutes, the liar decided that it was enough. Panting, he yells the obvious to the town, "Just joking! Hahahaha!" The townspeople knew this of course, but they were still annoyed by this boy's intrusion on their morning. About a dozen of them ran out of their homes, wielding brooms and shovels, and ran after Usopp.

"Why you little liar!" one member of the mob exclaimed as he threw a pot at the lying teen. "You won't get away with it this time!" Indeed, Usopp did this every morning and some afternoons. Usopp outran the mob everyday though, and this morning was no different.

"Hah! I got them good!" rejoiced the teenager in a secret location in town. Now that he got that out of the way, he continued to do his other daily routines. First, he had to meet up with his friend Kaya. Usopp made his way over to meet up with a girl who had become like a little sister to him.

Kaya lived in the largest mansion in Syrup Village. After the deaths of her parents, she inherited all of their large fortune. Unfortunately, she had depression and anxiety as the result of her past, and worried herself to a sickly condition. Perhaps the only brightness in her life came from the stories that a certain boy told her every day. It was about 9:30 AM and Kaya heard a knocking on her window.

"Usopp!" Kaya exclaimed when she saw her long-nosed friend perched up on the tree by her windowsill.

"You had that depressed look again," stated Usopp.

"I'm sorry, I wanted to treat you like a proper guest, but Klahadore wouldn't allow it. It's not like you're a bad person!"

"Don't worry about it; I feel comfortable out here. Being inside your room would suffocate me, a brave warrior of the…" Usopp started. "Of the…" For some reason, the usual liar could not finish his sentence.

 _'Come on Usopp, just say that you're a brave warrior of the seas. After all, you'll surely become one when the time comes. But when will that be?'_ Usopp started some deep contemplation of his goals. _'Just think about this later Usopp. Just tell Kaya about your adventure on the island of the giant goldfish.'_

Kaya tilted her head, wondering what was wrong.

"Uh… After all, remember the giant goldfish sea king that I told you about yesterday. The goldfish was so big that his poop formed a HUGE island!" Usopp regained his composure. This was met with Kaya giggling. "A couple days later I saw the goldfish's owner. He was even bigger than the goldfish. I was still injured from battling the goldfish, so I had to beat the giant with one hand. He eventually slipped on a giant banana peel!"

After the initial hiccup, Usopp continued entertaining Kaya with his grand lies. However, something felt wrong. Though the girl was laughing joyously as normal, Usopp found little entertainment in telling these lies. _'What am I doing here? I'm not a brave warrior of the seas. I didn't do any of these things. I'm downplaying the adventures of real pirates. Like… my father.'_

The normally unperturbed teenager became less and less enthusiastic with each lie, which Kaya quickly caught on to. "What's wrong Usopp? You aren't your normal self," she asked, genuinely concerned.

 _'Why am I thinking of this now? Just keep telling your lies Usopp…'_

"Uh… I…uh…" Usopp couldn't form coherent sentences. He was still deep in thought. After a few seconds, he began to speak. "I'm not a brave warrior of the seas. I'm not even a pirate," he whispered. After spitting out those words like they were poison, the boy started to climb down. As he started to leave the mansion, Kaya spoke.

"Usopp." The boy in question turned. "I'll see you tomorrow!" Kaya got out with an earnest smile.

Usopp could only nod and smile back.

 _Usopp's 'Secret' Hideout, 5:00 PM_

The sun began to set as Usopp reclined in his treehouse. Rather than do target practice as he normally did in the afternoon, the boy found himself deep in thought. He thought about pirates, his father (Yasopp), and his mother (Banchina). His father had left him and his mother when Usopp was only 5, a move that was almost universally frowned upon. However, his mother would always talk about how brave Yasopp was, and she always defended his decision.

The teenager reached some conclusion in his thoughts, so he closed his eyes and dozed off.

In almost no time at all, Usopp snapped open his eyes. "PIRATES!" he screamed to everyone in the treehouse. This, of course, only consisted of the teen himself. Usopp was filled with a horrible sense of dread but also an unusual sense of duty. He had to investigate whatever forced him awake. Usopp quickly got on his feet and scrambled to his chest.

It could barely be considered a "chest", more like a mass of wood vaguely shaped like one. Usopp had found this in the woods a year ago. The item he was looking for was his trusty slingshot. Made of the finest materials that he could buy in Syrup Village, paid with the measly sum of money he received by doing various jobs around town, Ginga Pachinko was a deceptively potent weapon. A slingshot is nothing without ammunition, so Usopp grabbed his pouch of projectiles. After thinking for a second, he opened his backup stash and grabbed as many projectiles as he could. He also grabbed his trusty hammer as well.

Fully equipped, Usopp bursted out of his treehouse, almost plummeting several feet due to negligence, climbed down the ladder, and ran. About fifteen seconds into his sprinting, Usopp stopped and wondered where he needed to go. The sharpshooter closed his eyes. As if some god was speaking to him directly, Usopp had the strongest sense to go to the shore he visits every morning. With his destination set, the boy resumed running.

 _Southern Shore, 5:20 PM_

Good news never seemed to come without bad news to Tomoi. When he was born, his mother died due to complications in pregnancies. When he got his first job, his father got in a bar fight with the wrong gang leader and was murdered. And when he first plundered a large sum of money, it was stolen (along with some his own personal items) by a young orange haired thief that same day. And now his pirate crew successfully defeated its first major enemy, but his crew was devastated and just barely got away.

The once powerful "Thirsty Thieves Pirates" which boasted a combined bounty of five million beri was reduced to a mere four members. His crew attacked a seemingly vulnerable ship in search of booty. In the fight that ensued, Tomoi's pirate crew dozens of people, including its captain and its first mate, a loss of four million beri. On the "bright" side, the four surviving members were enough to defeat the enemy pirate crew. They had only about 50,000 beri on board.

With the overwhelming loss of life at the battle, the four remaining crew members were devastated. They had no idea what to do, until "Thirsty Mark" (the former second mate with a one million beri bounty) decided on going to the nearest island. Now the four, led by Thirsty Mark, were due to arrive at Syrup Village in just a few minutes.

It was around this time that Usopp arrived on the scene. Syrup village was surrounded by two hills which formed narrow entrances on the north and south shores. Usopp scaled one of the hills and spotted something in the water. The teen observed the Jolly Roger. It featured a skull and crossbones with a barrel tipped as if the skull was drinking from it. Usopp could not identify the crew, but it was clearly a pirate ship. Usopp noticed two people on the deck of the ship, but understood that there could be dozens inside rooms. The sense of dread that the teen had taken a backseat to his curiosity, but it came back in full force once he spotted a rifle laying around on deck.

Usopp realized that if he went back to tell the town about these pirates, they could have docked and already started attacking. He found no better alternative though, so Usopp turned around and ran back to town.

It was a repeat of the morning. No one believed him in the slightest. It was a waste of time. After yelling one final time, Usopp convinced a woman… to throw a frying pan at him. Defeated, the teenager yelled in desperation and began to run back toward the shore.

When he resumed his position on the hill, the pirates had already docked on the shore. There were only four in total that got off the ship, but they looked terrifying nonetheless. They looked like they were in their late 20s, three of them had terrifying beards which automatically made them evil. One of them even had a goatee, which meant he was the leader. The way that the other three talked to him provided more evidence that the goateed pirate was the captain.

"Syrup village is first, there isn't anyone we can recruit from this town," the 'captain' noted, examining his rifle. He was walking a yard ahead of the rest.

"We can get crew members from Staple Village which is right past this," one of the bearded crewmembers suggested.

"Aye, but we got'sa show dat the Thirsty Thieves a' still the most fearsome pirates in the East Blue," another crew member said.

"Jefufufufufufu!" The captain had a distinctive laugh. "Yeah, Fango is right. Let's start by taking this village. We four are more than enough. I'm getting thirsty for battle, jefufufu!"

Now the situation was clear, the Thirsty Thieves pirates, which were down to only four members for whatever reason, were about to pillage this town, and Usopp was the only one who currently knew. The first thing that came into the liar's mind was to run back and tell the town's guard personally about the Thirsty Thieves; dropping a name like Thirsty Thieves might convince them. Regardless, the town would be convinced when the pirates appeared in town.

But someone might be killed before the guard is mobilized. Usopp gulped at the thought of that. There must be a way for no one of Syrup Village to die. One hand reached for his Ginga Pachinko . There were only four of them, and they had no idea Usopp was there. His other hand reached inside his ammunition pouch. _'I am the only one who can take them out right here. And if I do it right, they won't know what hit them.'_

Usopp reached for a black sphere for his first shot. As the 'captain' turned to say something to his crewmates, the teen saw the golden opportunity and reached for two other spheres. Stretching the band back, Usopp released his first shot. The bullet travelled to the target in less than a second, but before even that Usopp fired his two other shots through the air.

The first bullet hit directly at the leader's neck, exploding in a cloud of gunpowder. This impact pushed the 'captain' forward, but before he could even scream another bullet hit his back. This shot didn't explode in gunpowder but instead in fire, casting his entire body on fire. The screaming began after the bang of the gunpowder and the crinkle of the fire, but stopped abruptly when a spiked bullet pierced his temple, leading to a gruesome death. Even though the captain had made some erratic movements after beings shot and lit on fire, the third bullet still hit right on target. The pirate promptly collapsed on the beach.

Usopp quickly ducked after firing those three shots, knowing that his attacks hit by the sounds and the eventual shouting by the three other pirates. _'_ _ **Sure Kill Trinity Star**_ _'_ Usopp named his killing technique. It was a combination attack using a **Gunpowder** **Star** – a highly explosive pellet filled with gunpowder – a **Flame Star –** a pellet containing flammable substances as well as an ignition machination – and a **Spiked Star** – a spiked pellet that remains aerodynamically stable. Despite just likely killing a human being, the adrenaline that flowed through the teen's body led him to stand up behind the cover of the bush.

"I AM CAPTAIN USOPP!" he yelled. "LEAVE AT ONCE PIRATES OR MY ARMY OF EIGHT THOUSAND MEN WILL DEFEAT YOU!" The boy completed his giant lie and was promptly shot through the head and killed.

This potential outcome convinced Usopp not to give his fibbed speech. He decided to stick to long ranged sniping. Grabbing three silver colored spheres, Usopp capitalized on the confusion caused by his Trinity Star. He fired one bullet at each of the remaining pirates. Two of them anticipated another shot and were able to dodge it. However, one of the shots hit the skull of a bearded pirate, stunning him temporarily. Realizing that he was spotted, Usopp felt that shouting would have no consequence. " **Lead Star Barrage!** " he yelled the name of his second attack.

Reaching for a black sphere, Usopp was about to fire another attack before noticing that one of the pirates picked up the leader's rifle and aimed at him. The boy promptly hid under cover to dodge the incoming fire. The pirate at the shore aimed at the bush where Usopp was behind and fired. The bang that resulted could be heard as far as Syrup Village.

Fortunately Usopp anticipated the shot and had rolled to the left as soon as he dove behind cover, barely dodging the bullet. He continued to roll to the left in order to foil any additional shots fired, which there were a few of. Usopp loaded a **Lead Star** and fired it into a distance bush. This served the purpose of distraction as the gunshots promptly shot. The slingshot user took this opportunity to load and fire a **Gunpowder Star** at the rifle user's eyes, causing him to drop the rifle and fall his news, being knocked out by a **Lead Star** to the nose.

Usopp reached for a **Spiked Star** to attack another pirate member before he made a startling realization. The final pirate left brandished a pistol and shot at the teen. Usopp couldn't react in time and was shot in the ear. He ducked behind cover, gripping his bleeding hearing organ. It was a strong burning sensation but did not hurt as much as Usopp expected, a fact that he attributed to pure adrenaline. Usopp rolled around and managed to avoid a few more pistol shots; the shooter had terrible aim and probably only managed to hit Usopp out of pure luck.

The liar had two more **Gunpowder Stars** and two **Flame Stars** – as well as an excess amount of other stars. Usopp loaded a **Spiked Star** and fired it quickly after coming out of cover, followed by a **Gunpowder Star**. The shots missed their target, most likely due to his auditory injury, as the Spiked Star missed the pirates face and hit his chest while the Gunpowder Star missed completely. In the time window bought by the Spiked Star impacting the pirate's chest, Usopp fired a **Flame Star** at the pistol wielder, igniting him. The pirate dropped his pistol and started to run to water. Usopp finished him off with a **Gunpowder Star** , leading to the pirate collapsing face first into the water. Usopp glanced around and saw that they were all taken care of. All three of them. _'WAIT THERE WERE FOUR!'_ the boy made the startling realization just in time to notice the figure to the left of him.

Tomoi had ran up the hill right after he dodged Usopp's triple lead star attack. He brandished his pistol and aimed it at the sniper who finished off the rest of his crew and pulled the trigger. Unfortunately for the pirate, the boy realized his presence with just enough time to jump and dodge to the right. In the time that it took Tomoi to pull the ignition back for another shot, Usopp worked quickly pulled a star and aimed it at the pirate's feet. **"Smoke Star!"** Usopp shouted just as his bullet burst into a large cloud of smoke, impairing Tomoi's view. However, the boy's shouting gave a general indication of his location which Tomoi aimed and was ready to fire.

At the same time Usopp loaded a lead star in his Ginga Pachinko and fired at Tomoi's general location. The sphere hit Tomoi in the chest, causing him to cough up some blood. The sound of impact was music to Usopp's ears, and he loaded his final gunpowder star in his slingshot. He aimed it slightly higher than the previous attack and fired. Right as the gunpowder filled sphere left the slingshot, Usopp was met with another gunpowder fueled projectile. Tomoi had fired his pistol right as Usopp fired his slingshot, and the bullet impacted Usopp straight in the lung.

Usopp clutched his chest tightly as the pain and internal damage caused by the flintlock pistol was tremendous. However, the boy was able to smirk as his gunpowder star exploded in the pirate's face, defeating him. As his adrenaline started to fade, Usopp was free to collapse on the ground and slip into unconsciousness.

 _East Blue, Three Weeks Later_

They say the biggest curse in this world for humans is the inability to swim. Jyabura strongly disagreed; some of the strongest humans in the entire world are unable to swim but no one would say that people like the great Whitebeard is cursed. To humans, swimming is not the most important thing in the world.

However, it is to Jyabura. After all, he was a fishman – a fishman who no longer has the ability to swim. Tears welled in his eyes as he floated along the waters of East Blue on a piece of wood once called a raft, unable to enjoy the freedom that swimming provided. It all started when accidentally took a bite from a strange looking fruit. The bite wasn't even as big as his nose, but Jyabura was instantly cursed. The benefit he received from the Devil's Fruit could not possibly make up for the drawback.

His captain promptly kicked him out of the pirate group as soon as he learned about Jyabura's curse. The two were not on good terms in the first place, to say the least, and his captain took the curse as an opportunity to 'justly' remove Jyabura, the crew's excellent cook. This led to the fishman strapping himself onto a boat and rowing himself away from Cocoyashi Village.

Jyabura didn't have a destination in mind when he 'set sail'. Near an island, he encountered one pirate ship that almost immediately opened fire on him. The fishman barely got away; his boat was damaged and his oar was destroyed. He eventually ditched the dying boat for a 'raft' he encountered. With this, he was left hopelessly floating toward an unknown archipelago, starved of both food and hope and just barely holding on to the hunk of wood with his six arms.

And just as things seemed like they could not get any worse, Jyabura spotted another pirate ship. It was a caravel with a bowsprit shaped like a sheep's head. The fishman did not recognize the Jolly Rancher immediately – a tilted skull with a bony extrusion (perhaps a nose) under the eyes and a slingshot substituting one of the crossbones. Stroking his chin with three of his arms, Jyabura determined that the pirate crew must either be new or small, probably both. Regardless, the fishman was in no shape to even try to escape, so he resigned to his fate.

As he neared the ship, he noticed a sole figure on the deck. He was a young man, probably still a teenager, with tan skin and a long nose. The pirate walked up to the edge of his ship and addressed Jyabura.

"Hey, who are you?" he asked casually.

Jyabura paused, wondering why the pirate was being friendly. He formed a few theories before deciding that he had basically nothing to lose by answering.

"I am Jyabura," the fishman answered plainly.

"Nice to meet you. I am Captain Usopp!" the pirate replied with an air of confidence surrounding him snugly like a tailored suit.


End file.
